These three related works were made as part of the
utk project Challenging Rooms. Each piece was made
in response to some stimulus identified during a
preliminary visit to the household. At Helen’s flat
this was the discovery of an old set of Shakespeare volumes
on the window sill overlooking the local duck pond, at
Alison’s house the work grew out of the knowledge
that she and her family were shortly to experience the
chaos and reordering brought about by moving to another
country, while at Kate’s I was struck by the
collection of avocado stones piled on the kitchen window
sill, and combined this with a dry bureaucratic text on
working hours, which was on her desk upstairs.

Rustlings RoadRed Books for Green (3 bound books 10 x 15cm
each)
The three Shakespeare plays that include the word
‘Duck’ were re-formatted to draw attention to
the quacks hidden within the text. Bound into books, they
were placed alongside the 13 little red volumes of
Shakespeare which were already on the window sill
overlooking the local duck pond.

Kenwood Bank2744 ways to get from Sheffield to Sheveningen
(sectioned comb bound book 21 x 15cm)
The upheaval and disruption of the householder’s
impending move from Sheffield to Sheveningen is anticipated
by the anagrammatic disruption of the names of the starting
and finishing cities and countries. The phrases so formed
are presented in a sliced book, allowing 2744 different
journeys to be made.

Fulmer RoadAvocado/Avvocato (Audio CD and booklet)
Two element of Kate's home drew me in, the large number of
avocado stones and the European Working Times Directive,
with which she was working. The entire text of this legal
document was reset using only the letters A,V,O,C,A,D &
O, substitution being made when a letter was not available
from this esoteric virtual printing set. The result was
read out by an Italian speech synthesiser, a choice driven
by the wordplay of Avvocato, an Italian lawyer, and Avocado
the household's favourite fruit. Despite valiant and
persistent efforts, the word avocado never actually occurs
in the 45 minute monologue.

Challenging Rooms (November 1998 to April 1999):
using a newspaper advertisement inviting people to offer
domestic spaces for the group to work in, three houses were
selected with work being produced in a short space of time
responding to both house and the occupant. The focus of the
project was the semi-public “opening” which
provided an opportunity to discuss the work with an
audience unfamiliar with contemporary art.